xiii, [3], 346, [6] pages. Illustrations. Michael Olesker (born 1945) is a

xiii, [3], 346, [6] pages. Illustrations. Michael Olesker (born 1945) is a former syndicated columnist for The Baltimore Sun newspaper in Baltimore, Maryland, and a book author. Olesker attended the University of Maryland where he was on the staff of the school newspaper, The Diamondback, serving as the sports page editor. Olesker started writing for the Baltimore News-American in 1978, prior to becoming a Baltimore Sun writer between 1979-2006. He was also a commentator on WJZ-TV from 1983 through December 2002, and his columns were syndicated in other newspapers such as Newsday and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. After leaving The Baltimore Sun, Olesker was a columnist for the Baltimore Examiner until that newspaper ceased publication in 2009. Olesker is known for his liberal viewpoints and for his criticism of the administration of Maryland Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), whose press office in November 2004 issued an executive order banning state executive employees from talking with Olesker. The Sun unsuccessfully sued over the ban, in a case decided by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Olesker is the author of Journeys to the Heart of Baltimore and co-authored Leap into Darkness, a 1998 memoir of a Holocaust survivor. In Journeys to the Heart of Baltimore, veteran journalist Michael Olesker writes of Baltimore's melting pot in all its rollicking, sentimental, good-natured, and chaotic essence. The stories come from neighborhood street corners and front stoops, playgrounds and school rooms, churches and synagogues, and families gathered around late-night kitchen tables. The D'Alesandro political dynasty comes to life here, and so do Lenny Moore and Artie Donovan of the legendary Baltimore Colts. The old East Baltimore ethnic enclaves nurture youngsters named Barbara Mikulski and Ted Venetoulis, and out of West Baltimore comes the future Afro-American newspaper publisher Jake Oliver. Journeys to the Heart of Baltimore is a delightful reminder of the nation's ethnic and racial mosaic, home to a future governor named Martin O'Malley and a future U.S. Representative named Dutch Ruppersberger. Boys from Baltimore's Little Italy, like John Pica, go off to fight a war in Italy when they know their allegiance is being tested. And a city struggles through racial convulsions, remembered by those such as John Steadman and Father Constantine Sitaris.